Himlayan Mountains

There is nothing more breath-taking than the Himalayan mountain range. The Himalayan Mountains are not only the tallest mountain range in the world, but also one of the youngest. There are several forces that helped to create and shape the Himalayan mountain range. These forces include plate tectonics and erosion. The Himalayan Mountains continue to change today.
India was once connected to the super continent called Pangea. Pangea included most of the land mass on Earth. Around 140 million years ago, India began its northward movement toward the Eurasian continent. About 80 million years ago, India was located roughly 6,400 km south of the Eurasian continent, moving northward at a rate of about 9 meters a century. Between 40 to 50 million years ago, the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate collided. Because the rock mass was about the same on both plates there was no subduction zone created which resulted in both land masses going straight up. The Himalayan Mountains are still getting taller year after year. After the last uplift, the growth of the mountains has slowed down to a little over 1 cm a year, or 10 meters every hundred years. At this rate the Himalayan Mountains will grow 10 km in a million years. Another piece of evidence that the Himalayan Mountains are still growing is the occurrence of many earthquakes along the range. Earthquakes can happen when two plates, like the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate, collide.
Tectonics is not the only reason the Himalayan Mountains have changed shape. Since the mountains have been in existence for more that 40 million years, erosion has also changed their shape. Over 100 billion tons of sediment is eroded away in the mountain range in every year. Most of the erosion happens in the low lying areas of the mountains wear flooding takes place.
Even though the Himalayan Mountains are breath- taking they are changing in some way every day. They continue to grow because of plate tectonics while at the same time they are also eroding away.[RN1]